Just in time for the home stretch of summer, Joe Nocera of the New York Times (a paper I sometimes write for) has posted his list of the the best business books ever Nocera has been a top business writer for decades now — for instance, his story on the boom of the 1980s, “The Ga-Ga Years,” is still a terrific read (it’s in the collection “Literary Journalism” and is also in a new collection of Nocera’s work, Good Guys and Bad Guys).
If you’re looking for a good summer read, you could pick up any of the books on his list, even the works of business-oriented fiction he can’t quite bring himself to love. Or cull through the comments. Skip those that wander off into management and advice books — his focus is narratives, stories, yarns, something to lose yourself in while at the beach. Also, ignore the comments about why he didn’t include “Barbarians at the Gate.” It’s the book that inspired his list, and is basically at the top of it, even if he didn’t slip it into the list. But in the comments come books like “The Soul of a New Machine” and “Predator’s Ball.”
There’s even a number of mentions of good fiction, “Babbitt,” “The Jungle” and other classics.
I’d add one for entrepreneurs, “Startup” by Jerry Kaplan. It’s his memoir of starting up a company, and it’s the best book about Silicon Valley culture I’ve seen.
Happy reading!
